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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 





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MARY AUGUSTA’S PRICE 













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T Mfc OF 

aoMGriRns, 

Two CoPiatJ R»oir)vKb 

OCT iO 1903 

jo CAeoeinuY pumav 

CLAS^ ^/Ycl Wo. 

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Copyright, 1903, by 
Henry Altemus 


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Permission to reproduce the pictures 
in this book has been granted by ** The 
Youth’s Companion.” 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

Mary Augusta at Home 

. 13 

II. 

Mary Augusta’s Faculty . 

23 

III. 

A Cheery Temptress 

. 35 

IV. 

“I’m a Boy’s Sister” . . . . 

47 

V. 

Mrs. Tackaberry is Upset 

. 63 

VI. 

Mary Augusta in the Piece-room 

77 

VII. 

The Accumulation of Wealth 

. 93 

VIII. 

;Mary Augusta in Business 

103 


vii 


IV. 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE ^ 

“ ‘We’ll walk right along together’ ” Frontispiece. 

“ Mary Augusta worked with tireless energy ” . 53 
“ ‘You said you were a boy’s sister’ ”, , 83 ^ 







MARY AUGUSTA AT HOME 







MARY AUGUSTA’S PRICE 


CHAPTER I 

MAKY AUGUSTA AT HOME 

M ary AIJGIJSTA was tail for her 
fifteen years, and she had a high 
forehead, and a long, peaked 
chin. Her sisters, Eldora and Miranda, 
had disputations as to whether it was 
the high forehead or the peaked chin 
that made her look so ^ ^ sober. But 

Mary Augusta knew that it was neither ; 
it was because she wasn’t smart.” 

Miranda, who was nineteen, gave 
music lessons and was the village libra- 
13 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


rian; and Eldora, who was only seven- 
teen, had tanght school for more than a 
year. Elnathan, the boy of the family, 
Mary Angnsta’s twin, was the best 
student in the high school, and the min- 
ister was already talking about helping 
him to make his way through college. 

When the neighbors congratulated 
Mrs. Wing upon the abilities and talents 
of her fatherless brood, they were apt 
to add, ‘‘WHiat is Mary Augusta going 
to doP’ And Mrs. Wing would heave a 
long sigh and say despairingly that 
Mary Augusta didn’t want to do any- 
thing but to clean out under the stove. 

Mrs. Wing herself scrubbed tirelessly 
and scorned housework for her daugh- 
ters. She had cherished a hope that 
Mary Augusta would be literary and 
write poetry for the papers, as Eunice 
14 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Phillips did — under the nom de plume 
of Violet Walsingham. She said she 
thought if she had a daughter who was 
literary she could die happy; and the 
others being so capable had given Mary 
Augusta such a chance that it seemed as 
if she ought to he the one. 

One afternoon when her mother had 
said all that to Miss Eoxally Tapley, 
Mary Augusta went and sat on a stump, 
away out by the pasture bars, and knew 
that she wasn’t literary and never could 
be, and felt that life was dark. 

She did fairly well at school, but that 
was because Elnathan helped her and 
kept her from putting ^^the cart before 
the horse” in her Latin translations— 
that was what Elnathan said she did; 
Mary Augusta thought that the ancient 
Latin worthies had that way themselves. 
15 


Mary Augusta’s Price 

He drew so many figures on the barn 
door in trying to get geometry into her 
head that the tin peddler— who was 
editor of the rebus corner” in the 
county paper— thought he had invented 
a puzzle and offered him a brand-new 
cotfee pot to go shares in it. Elnathan 
seeing Mary Augusta on the stump, 
which he knew was her stool of misery, 
offered her consolation. 

Never mind! When you are an old 
maid you shall live with me and I will 
take care of you, and you shall do 
nothing but scrub up and make pre- 
serves.” 

Mary Augusta smiled gratefully; El- 
nathan meant to be kind; but there was 
a little bitterness in the smile; he in- 
tended her to be like Curlylocks in 
Mother Goose’s rhymes, who was to 
16 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, 

And feed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream. 

With all the others, Elnathan thought 
that she would never be good for any- 
thing. Some one must always take care 
of her. 

‘‘Garafelia Bumpus is going to the 
city to take painting lessons,’^ pursued 
Elnathan. ^ ‘ They think she will he able 
to paint portraits. She can draw people 
now, so you know in a minute who they 
are; she drew old Mr. Haddocks asleep 
in church so you could almost hear him 
snore. Lucky for the Bumpuses to have 
one smart one in the family ! ’ ’ 

And Elnathan still meant only to be 
kind; he thought he was cheering Mary 
Augusta with light gossip. A boy may 
astonish the minister with his Latin 
verses, and go over the pons asinornm 

a — Mary Augusta's Price. 17 


Mary Augusta's Price 


with colors flying, and possess a kind 
heart withal, and yet be as tactless as 
if he had no brains whatever. 

Thus the iron entered still more deeply 
into Mary Augusta’s soul, and for what 
came afterward— for Mary Augusta’s 
weakness in the moment of temptation— 
Elnathan and his consolation had their 
share of innocent responsibility. Not 
even Elnathan, who was her twin brother, 
and boasted that it was easy for a fellow 
like him to see through a girl— not even 
Elnathan knew that Mary Augusta was 
ambitious. 

‘‘You can have all my quinces to make 
your jelly, if you want to send some to 
the fair,” said Elnathan, slowly, at 
length. This was another effort at con- 
solation, Mary Augusta’s look having 
shown him that the first was a failure. 

18 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Tlirough the gloom of Mary Augusta ’s 
face struggled a faint gleam of bright- 
ness. Mrs. Tackaberry, the most notable 
housewife in Joppa, had praised the jelly 
that she made last year, and wondered 
that she had not sent some of it to the 
county fair. In a confidential moment 
Mary Augusta had whispered to El- 
nathan, breathlessly, that some time she 
meant to send some. 

That was last fall, and Elnathan had 
never thought of it since. Glancing 
across the pasture he had caught sight 
of his yellowing quinces above the garden 
wall and had been reminded of Mary 
Augusta’s intention just in time. 

But Mary Augusta’s face darkened 
again; one might make quince jelly, 
amber, translucent, ambrosial, fit to send 
to the county fair, and yet have to be 
19 


Mary Augusta's Price 


taken care of. It would not make one 
like those brilliant girls who taught 
school and gave music lessons and could 
learn to paint portraits, and take care 
of themselves, and be an honor and help 
to their families. The jelly might even 
win a prize, but that would not prevent 
her mother from comparing her, with 
bitter disparagement, to Eunice Phillips, 
who wrote poetry for the Clarion. 


20 


MARY AUGUSTA’S FACULTY 


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N 







CHAPTER II 

MAKY AUGUSTA FACULTY 

‘‘Ayr ARY AUGUSTA!^’ Her moth- 
i V 1 er’s voice came shrill across the 
pasture. “Miss Roxally wants 
to see you. ’ ’ 

Mary Augusta arose reluctantly. Miss 
Roxally always carried a plump little 
pin-cushion, with a fine assortment of 
pins and needles dangling at her side; 
she had been a dressmaker and clung 
with pride to this badge of her calling. 
She also carried a collection of meta- 
phorical pins and needles, with which 
she dealt merciless stabs; she described 
herself as being one that always spoke 
her mind. 

From childhood Mary Augusta had 
23 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


harbored a vague sense that the literal 
pins had something to do with the meta- 
phorical stabs, and she felt a real shrink- 
ing of the flesh from Miss Eoxally. Her 
mother waylaid her before she reached 
the sitting-room. 

‘Ht seems considerable like being a 
hired girl, hnt yon can do as you’re a 
mind to,” she whispered. 

Miss Eoxally smiled upon her with the 
factitious pleasantness horn of very even 
rows of false teeth, and Mary Augusta 
smiled wanly in return, trying to conceal 
the apprehensive quiver of her peaked 
chin which Miss Eoxally ’s presence al- 
ways caused. 

‘HVe just been telling your mother 
that there wa’n’t another girl in Joppa 
that was so close-mouthed that I could 
trust ’em to help me finish my rug, ’ ’ said 
24 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Miss Eoxally. ‘‘Maybe it isn^t always 
a good sign/^ she added, promptly. 
“My grandmother Phillips used to say 
where there was so much silence there 
was something brewing. But if you 
want a secret kept, thinks I, Mary 
Augusta Wing is the girl— to say nothing 
of your having some faculty that way, 
for this here sitting-room rug of yours 
is real pretty for a girl of your age to 
hook; IVe got one on my back kitchen 
that ain^t a mite better-looking!^^ 

“Mary Augusta hooked that rug when 
she wasn’t but twelve. She’s some like 
her Grandma Wing, that wa’n’t never 
happy without she had a rag carpet on 
the frame, ” said Mrs. Wing, with a touch 
of scorn. 

“For them that couldn’t never get 
forehanded enough to get a boughten 
25 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


carpet, even for their parlor, rag carpets 
were better ’n nothing,’^ said Miss Eox- 
ally, with her accustomed candor. 

And Mrs. Wing was moved to reply, 
with some spirit, that for her part she 
was glad her girls were intellectual— 
all hut Mary Augusta. 

Miss Eoxally moved her creaking 
rocking-chair deliberately around until 
Mrs. Wing was in retirement behind its 
high back. 

^‘I’ll give you two dollars a week to 
come and help me so^s^t I can finish my 
rug in time for the fair, Mary Augusta,’’ 
she said. ‘‘We’ll do the housework to- 
gether; ’tisn’t any great, any way, and 
then there’ll be plenty of time for 
two of us to get the rug done. I 
could finish it myself if I didn’t 
happen to get a crick in my neck 
26 


Mary Augusta's Price 


or a numb spell, but being subject to 
them I didn’t dare to risk it. And I 
didn’t want to spoil it by hurrying. I’ve 
earnt my money hard, but good honest 
labor pays just as well, sometimes, as if 
’twas intellectual,— like school-keeping 
and giving music-lessons,— and I’ve got 
now where I can afford to hire help. ’ ’ 

Even from her ignominious retirement 
behind the chair, Mrs. Wing forced her- 
self to say, with an effect of heartiness, 
that she knew Miss Eoxally had a beau- 
tiful house with everything beautiful in 
it, to say nothing of money in the bank. 
Since Mary August was not intellectual 
she might as well do what she could. 

<M’ve got proper pride enough to 
keep Lucinda Tackaberry from beating 
me at rug-making,” said Miss Eoxally, 
firmly; and she moved her chair half- 
27 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


way around again in token of propi- 
tiation. Mary Augusta said she would go. 

‘‘I want you to understand, Mary 
Augusta, said Miss Eoxally, with 
solemn emphasis, ^^that there isn’t to be 
a word said about that rug to anybody, 
either what the pattern is or where it 
came from. While I never was one to 
speak ill of my neighbors, I know Lu- 
cinda Tackaberry, root and branch, 
and underhandedness comes natural to 
some. ’ ’ 

Mary Augusta promised readily, even 
a little absent-mindedly, it steemed so 
easy a promise to keep, that she would 
guard faithfully all secrets connected 
with the rug. 

^‘Land sakes! you needn’t be a mite 
afraid,” said Mrs. Wing. ^‘It isn’t in 
Mary Augusta to talk.” 

28 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Mary Augusta went in the stage over 
to Miss Eoxally’s house at the Corner, 
early the next morning. Mrs. Wing had 
suggested that as it was Saturday Mary 
Augusta might better wait until Monday, 
but Miss Roxally said she couldn’t enjoy 
her gospel privileges, Sunday, if she had 
to feel that the rug was hanging fire, so 
to speak. 

Elnathan clung to the back of the 
stage, after it had started, and murmured 
hoarsely that one of these days she 
shouldn’t make rugs for anybody but 
herself and him. Entirely inditferent, 
himself, to Miss Eoxally’s pin-pricks, 
Elnathan was vaguely aware of Mary 
Augusta’s sensitiveness to them, and of 
a certain pluck” that she was display- 
ing in this venture. 

Miranda played a rattling march, in 
29 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


an interval of dusting the parlor, and 
waved her duster out of the window by 
way of a cheerful speeding ; but she said, 
with a sigh, to Eldora, that she had 
known there was nothing to be expected 
of Mary Augusta as long ago as when 
she always wanted to make sorrel tea 
instead of dressing dolls. 

When Miss Eoxally had retired from 
business five years before, she had for- 
saken the rural simplicity of North 
Joppa for the comparative elegance of 
the Corner, and had bought a house with 
a bay window, and with ornamental 
slates on its roof, and a front yard with 
star- and heart-shaped flower beds. She 
had given herself up to the housewifely 
delights for which in the days of her 
cramped little shop and incessant cutting 
and fitting she had always longed. 

30 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Floriculture and fancy work were her 
chief joys, and at first the rivalry of Mrs. 
Lucinda Tackaberry, who lived a little 
farther out of town on the same road, 
was only a pleasant stimulus. Even 
after Mrs. Tackaberry had a second bay 
window added to her house and the roof 
painted red, and a marble ^4mage’’ 
placed in her front yard. Miss Eoxally 
could ‘‘feel to fellowship her,’’ as she 
generously remarked, and there was no 
diminution of neighborly intimacy. 

But when Mrs. Tackaberry ’s em- 
broidered sofa pillow and silk lamp 
shade both won prizes at the county fair, 
while Miss Eoxally ’s remained unnoticed, 
the latter lady expressed herself freely 
as being obliged, in decent self-respect, 
to remember that Mrs. Tackaberry ’s own 
niece’s husband was on the committee 
31 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


of awards, and although wild horses 
wouldn’t draw such a remark from her, 
there were those who had gone so far 
as to say that two and two made four. 

From that time dated not only Miss 
Eoxallj^’s firm determination to win that 
particular prize at the fair for which 
Mrs. Tackaberry should strive, but also 
a dignified coldness on both sides and an 
end of all friendly intercourse. 


32 


A CHEERY TEMPTRESS 


S—Mary Augusta's Ft ice. 


CHAPTER III 


A CHEERY TEMPTRESS 

A S Mary Augusta went into church 
the morning after her arrival, 
Mrs. Tackaberry greeted her in 
friendly fashion, even sharing with her 
the old-fashioned ‘‘posy^^ of southern- 
wood and sweet peas which she carried. 
Her sweet peas bloomed earlier and 
later than other folks ^s, she whispered 
proudly. Mary Augusta was walking 
with Martha Perry, but Miss Roxally, 
who was just in front of them, overheard 
and sniffed contemptuously. 

Between the first hymn and the prayer. 
Miss Roxally leaned over and whispered 
impressively to Mary Augusta : 

35 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


‘‘I’d just as lief you wouldn’t have 
anything at all to say to Mrs. Tackaherry 
while you’re stopping with me.” And 
she wished the posy off Mary Augusta’s 
lap with her fan. She did it as if by 
accident, but when Mary Augusta 
stooped to pick it up she found that 
Miss Eoxally’s heavy foot was set upon 
it. 

When they went out of church, Miss 
Roxally was surrounded by friends, and 
Mary Augusta suddenly found Mrs. 
Tackaberry’s pleasant face smiling down- 
upon her again. 

“I don’t know as I’ve seen you since 
you were a little mite of a girl,” she 
said. “But I should have known you 
anywhere, you favor your father so 
much. ’ ’ 

There was cheery friendliness in the 
36 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


creases of Mrs. Tackaberry^s double 
cbin, a helpful kindness in the firm 
pressure of her fat hand ; or so it seemed 
to Mary Augusta when Mrs. Tackaberry 
said: 

‘‘Well walk right along together. 
Deacon Greer has carried Miss Tapley 
off in his carriage ; I expect she knew I 
would look out for you.’^ 

Mary Augusta shrank back and mur- 
mured something about Martha Perry. 
But Martha Perry had gone along with 
a knot of girls; the girls were walking 
slowly, evidently engaged in an interest- 
ing discussion. Mary Augusta thought 
that she and her companion would soon 
overtake them and then she could make 
an excuse to leave her for them. 

So Mary Augusta walked on with the 
firm clasp upon her arm and the creases 
37 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


in Mrs. Tackaberrys ’ double cbin becom- 
ing more and more genially deep. 

^‘Ever since I called on your mother 
last fall and tasted your quince jelly I Ve 
wanted to get acquainted with you. I’m 
always hearing how smart your mother’s 
girls are.” 

‘^I’m the one that isn’t smart,” said 
Mary Augusta, in candid humility. 

^^You not smart? the one that made 
that jelly and the one that Miss Eoxally 
Tapley chose to help her?” A playful 
little tap of her fan emphasized the flat- 
tery of Mrs. Tackaberry’s remonstrance. 

tell you housekeeping accomplish- 
ments are thought a great deal of now-a- 
days, and they pay, which is more than 
can be said of all accomplishments.” 

‘‘How?” gasped Mary Augusta, with 
all her eager soul in her face. 

38 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


I suppose we’d better talk 
about that when it isn’t Sunday; still, I 
was only going to say that Carter & Mud- 
gett, the grocers down at Freeport, have 
asked me to supply them with all their 
jellies and preserves.” Mrs. Tacka- 
berry suddenly began to talk of the 
beauty of the day as some people passed 
them. ‘Mt is a little of a secret, of 
course,” she explained a moment later. 
‘‘Carter & Mudgett don’t want every- 
body’s jellies and preserves, and they 
had heard of my sweet pickles. You 
have heard of my sweet pickles 1 ’ ’ 

“Oh yes,” said Mary Augusta, as if 
she had been asked if she ever had heard 
of the Declaration of Independence. 

In fact, Mrs. Tackaberry’s sweet 
pickles were like the old woman’s fabu- 
lous root beer, the recipe for which had 
39 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


once served as a king’s ransom. They 
were mixed” pickles. Critical tasting 
and experimenting had failed to enable 
any housekeeper successfully to imitate 
them. 

‘‘They want those, too. But I never 
shall make any more. I’m growing old, 
and since my trouble”— her full, florid 
face worked piteously— “I haven’t been 
the same woman.” 

Mary Augusta vaguely remembered 
having heard of the trouble ; it had hap- 
pened when she was quite a little girl ; it 
must have been six or seven years before. 
Her eyes filled with sympathetic tears, 
even while her heart thrilled with long- 
ing to hear more of this wonderful busi- 
ness prospect— this unthought of possi- 
bility. Mrs. Tackaberry drew her 
toward her tenderly. 

40 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


‘‘How old are you, dear?’’ she asked. 

“I shall be fifteen next week,” an- 
swered Mary Augusta, breathlessly. 

“I’m going to give you my recipe for 
sweet pickles, and I’m going to get you 
the chance to make jellies and preserves 
for Carter & Mudgett. And all I’ll ask 
you to do for me in return is a little mite 
of a thing— just a little mite of a thing 
that won’t cost you anything.” 

Mary Augusta’s sensitive face flushed 
and paled. Her chin was quivering. 

“I can’t think of anything that I 
wouldn’t do!” she answered, fervently. 

She ran back “across lots”; she had 
unconsciously gone beyond Miss Tap- 
ley’s house in her eager interest in what 
Mrs. Tackaherry was saying. Deacon 
Greer’s carriage had gone around 
through the “willow road” — having old 
41 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Mrs. Gerry, who lived there, as a pas- 
senger— but it was as well to hurry, for 
if she arrived later than Miss Eoxally it 
might be necessary to explain how she 
had been detained. 

In her effort to take the shortest pos- 
sible cut across the field, she found her- 
self among flags and rushes and over 
shoes in water, and was obliged to re- 
trace her steps and skirt the stone wall. 

She was running rapidly, her mind in 
a delightful ferment of sweet pickles and 
possible independence, when there sud- 
denly appeared on the other side of the 
stone wall the startling spectacle of a 
manacled hand— a boy’s hand, slender 
and sunburned. The iron upon the wrist 
was pounded with great force upon a 
stone; then it was wrenched about upon 
a sharp projection of rock. The hand 
42 


Mary Augusta's Price 


was torn and bleeding with many of these 
poundings and wrenchings. 

Mary Augusta did not cry out, simply 
because she was not of the crying-out 
kind. She ran on a little way and then 
she stood and looked back, with a wildly 
beating heart. 

The boy still lay in ambush on the 
other side of the wall. 

A boy, like Elnathan, and with a hand- 
cuff on his wrist! He must have been 
bad, but Mary Augusta yearned to help 
him. By the way of Elnathan all boys 
were her brothers. 


43 



4 



I’M A BOY’S SISTER 


CHAPTER IV 


A BOY^S SISTER 

M ary august a, gazing at the 
handcuffed boy, stood irresolute 
for a moment and then stole 
softly back to the stone wall. But she 
did not go softly enough ; the movement 
of the scrubby birches that lined the wall 
on the other side showed that the boy 
had taken alarm and was scurrying 
away on his hands and knees. 

^‘You needn’t run. I’m a boy’s sis- 
ter,” Mary Augusta called; but the 
words faltered on her tongue. She was 
afraid of a boy with a handcuff ; workers 
of iniquity were almost unknown, to 
peaceful Joppa. 


47 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


She turned her steps homeward and 
had set forth the Sunday dinner of cold 
baked beans and huckleberry pie when 
Miss Eoxally came in. 

It was only after her second piece of 
huckleberry pie, however, that she sud- 
denly looked up at Mary Augusta and 
asked : 

‘‘What were the girls talking about 
when you walked home with them this 
noon?^’ 

Mary Augusta faltered, for truth was 
as the breath of her nostrils. 

“Eliza Patey’s stepmother won’t let 
her make a butter image to send to the 
fair,” she said, remembering a chance 
remark. “The girls think it’s mean.” 

“Ornament is ornament, and victuals 
are victuals, ’ ’ said Miss Eoxally, senten- 
tiously. “I’m glad Hannah Patey has 
48 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


got some sense. ’Twas a real improv- 
ing discourse this morning, wasn’t it? 
You ought to have heard old Mrs. Gerry 
try to find out about my rug, while we 
were cornin’ home! Lucinda Tacka- 
berry asked her to do it, I haven’t any 
doubt; but there’ll be one thing Lucinda 
Tackaberry can’t find out, if there never 
was but one, and that’s the pattern of 
my fair rug. ’ ’ 

At night Miss Eoxally decided that she 
would not go to the evening service ; she 
said she felt a little as if a numb spell 
might be coming on, and she wasn’t go- 
ing to run any risks about finishing that 
rug. Mary Augusta could go with the 
girls. 

Mary Augusta went with the girls, but 
she came home with Mrs. Tackaberry. 
It was down in the hollow, just before 

Mary Augusta's Price. 49 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


they came to Miss Eoxally’s garden 
fence, that Mrs. Tackaherry told Mary 
Augusta what the . little thing was that 
she expected her to do in return for the 
great business opportunity she had of- 
fered her. She had brought the recipe 
for sweet pickles, carefully folded in her 
hymn-hook; she spoke of it with almost 
tearful solemnity, saying that it had been 
in her family for generations and had 
never been sold or given away, and that 
her grandmother Forristall had always 
prophesied there would he a fortune in it 
for somebody. 

It was such a little thing she wanted 
Mary Augusta to do that it seemed fool- 
ish to ask it; Miss Eoxally couldn’t have 
any real objection, but Miss Eoxally was 
old-maidish, as everybody knows, and 
she had chosen to make a great mystery 
50 


Mary Augusta's Price 


about her rug. Mrs. Tackaberry wanted 
to see the rug. 

‘‘I won’t ask you to let me see it!” 
cried Mrs. Tackaberry, when Mary Au- 
gusta’s silence had testified more strongly 
than words to her dislike of the proposed 
bargain. ^‘It needn’t be your doings at 
all ! I know the rug is in the wood-shed 
chamber, and I know there’s a fiight of 
stairs leading up there from the barn. 
You can manage to leave the barn door 
open and the wood-shed chamber un- 
locked; then you needn’t know anything 
about what happens ! 

know it’s childish in me to want to 
see it,” went on the wheedler, ^‘but it 
don’t seem as if I could stand it to have 
her beat me; and I can’t feel satisfied to 
go on with my rug while I am not sure 
but she’s got a handsomer one. It won’t 
51 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


do a mite of harm ; I wouldn^t copy it nor 
tell anybody for the world. I^m going 
to give you the recipe, just as if ’twas 
something great that I was after. It’ll 
help you to that chance with Carter & 
Mudgett, and if you ain’t the one, after 
all, that makes the family fortunes. I’ll 
miss my guess ! ’ ’ 

A moment of miserable hesitation, in 
which a long elm branch seemed to he 
writing in the road like the finger of 
destiny, then Mary Augusta’s hand 
closed over the folded paper. 

The next day the rug grew apace. With 
care and catnip tea Miss Eoxally had 
warded off the ^‘numb spell.” Mary 
Augusta worked with tireless energy. 
Miss Eoxally declared that she was 
thoroughly satisfied with the change she 
had made in the middle from the orig- 
52 



Mary Augusta' s Price. 

“MARY AUGUSTA WORKED WITH TIRELESS ENERGY.” 


53 





Mary Augusta’s Price 


inal pattern, which was only ^ kittle 
whirligigs that didn’t seem to mean any- 
thing”— if it was a real Persian prayer- 
rng of which a summer visitor had taken 
the pattern for her. The middle, which 
Miss Eoxally had composed, or rather 
had copied, with slight variations, 
from a pattern she had bought, was an 
owl of brilliant purple perched upon a 
green bough adorned with bright red 
cherries. 

Miss Eoxally felt that an owl upon a 
rug was a daring innovation. She was 
alive to the difficulty of securing a truly 
owl-like expression of feature in rags; 
but she believed that she and Mary Au- 
gusta together might achieve it. 

After sleepless nights of conflict, and 
fruitless searchings in her ‘‘piece room” 
in the attic for just the right shade of 
55 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


purple, she had resolved to sacrifice her 
second best cashmere dress ; but this was 
a secret not as yet revealed. 

Miss Eoxally laid her head on the pil- 
low on that Monday night with bright 
hopes for the success of her rug, and 
congratulating herself that she had en- 
gaged Mary Augusta, who was capable 
and close-mouthed. Meanwhile Mary 
Augusta was slipping softly out through 
the long corridor to the wood-shed cham- 
ber, to unfasten the door at the head of 
the stairs that led to the barn. 

Just after dark she had stolen out and 
unlocked the barn door, and now Miss 
Eoxally ’s cherished secret lay open to 
the woman who was coming with a dark 
lantern, like a burglar, across the marshy 
field. 

Mary Augusta lay awake long that 

56 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


night, heavy with guilt. She tried to 
convince herself that what she had done 
was a little thing, as Mrs. Tackaherry 
said, a trifle that could harm no one; 
she remembered that Elnathan was 
always saying that she took things too 
hard. 

She coaxed her fancy to conjure up a 
future of brilliant business success. The 
great high-bush blueberries and black- 
berries, with which Dumpling Hill was 
covered, stood in shining jars upon her 
shelves ; she would furnish a market for 
the crab-apples and the damson plums 
for which the region about Joppa was 
noted ; other firms besides Carter & Mud- 
gett— city firms— should be her custom- 
ers. Stay! there should be a canning 
establishment like the one at the Port; 
like it, only larger. 


57 


Mary Augusta’s Price 

She would admit Elnathan to partner- 
ship ; perhaps he would like it as well as 
going to college. The firm should be E. 
& M. A. Wing. She felt a thrill of gen- 
erosity in the decision that Elnathan’s 
name should appear first. It really did 
something toward soothing the underly- 
ing, miserable sense of guilt which would 
not let itself be forgotten. 

Then she slept and dreamed, and 
things began to grow fantastic about the 
canning factory. The jars of Dumpling 
Hill blackberries had handcuffs about 
their necks ; Mrs. Tackaberry had turned 
into a sweet pickle of a variety which no 
one could name; it seemed to Mary 
Augusta that the owl on Miss Eoxally’s 
rug might know the name, but he had 
hung himself with a long purple rag. 
Meanwhile the sweet pickle that had been 
58 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Mrs. Tackaberry bubbled and steamed in 
a great kettle, and then it smoked, and 
the smoke was suffocating. 


59 




MRS. TACKABERRY IS 

UPSET 


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141? 


CHAPTEE V 


MRS. TACKABEREY IS UPSET 

M AEY AUGUSTA found herself 
sitting upright in bed, crying 
out that she was choking— and 
that was no dream. The room was 
filled with smoke, and the cold, clear 
moonlight outside was mingled with a 
redder gleam. There was a noise of 
hurrying feet and a chorus of cries of 
^^Fire!^’ Mary Augusta dressed her- 
self, feeling scarcely sure that she was 
not dreaming. As she opened her door 
a heavy burden was being borne along 
the hall— the great rug in its frame from 
the wood-shed chamber. 

^‘No, I won’t have it taken outdoors I” 

63 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Miss Eoxally’s voice cried, shrilly. 
‘‘I’d rather risk its being burnt up than 
to have Lucinda Tackaberry find out 
what the pattern is!” 

Valuables were being hastily carried 
out of the house, but the rug was left in 
the spare chamber. The barn was burn- 
ing; it was likely that the wood-shed 
would go, also. But the wind was carry- 
ing the flames away from the house. 
There were strong hopes of saving it. 
Mary Augusta, listening horror-stricken 
at the head of the stairs, heard them say 
so. 

People were speculating about the 
origin of the fire. It had caught in 
the barn; that, they said, was evident. 
The barn door was found unlocked, 
though Miss Eoxally was sure she 
had locked it with her own hands. 


64 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Some tramp had set the fire, no 
doubt; he might have perished in the 
flames. 

Mary Augusta laughed hysterically, 
all alone in the darkness. A tramp! 
She knew well enough that it was Mrs. 
Tackaberry who set the fire. Probably 
she had put her lantern down upon the 
hay-loft while she opened the door; a 
wisp of hay had overhung the chimney 
of the lantern. 

Mrs. Tackaberry was heavy and 
clumsy, and she would have been too 
much perturbed in mind to stop the 
spread of the flame. 

With this picture before her, Mary 
Augusta flew about, trying to save 
things. She carried out Flulf, the old 
yellow cat, and her two kittens, three 
times, and each time Fluff returned to 
65 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


the hall closet with the kittens in her 
mouth. 

Miss Roxally ran wildly about with 
her most precious possessions and her 
most worthless, huddled promiscuously 
into a huge clothes-basket, and loudly be- 
wailed that she had allowed her insur- 
ance to expire the day before. If 
they did save the house, the barn and 
the carriage-house would he a total 
loss— a loss of not less than a thousand 
dollars. 

A thousand dollars! Mary Augusta 
felt as if an icy hand had clutched her 
heart when she heard that. In some way 
she must pay it. It did not occur to her 
that any other course would be possible— 
unless perhaps Mrs. Tackaberry might 
share; but Mary Augusta did not think 
that would be like Mrs. Tackaberry. No, 

66 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


her own life was mortgaged to Miss Eox- 
ally for a thousand dollars. 

It may be thought strange that Mary 
Augusta, who had yielded so easily to the 
temptation to do a dishonorable thing, 
should have on this point so high and 
inflexible a standard of morality ; but the 
other had been an intangible wrong done 
to Miss Eoxally, at worst but a blow to 
her vanity; while to Mary Augusta’s 
practical mind this tangible material 
injury assumed a very different 
aspect. 

All her high hopes of independence, 
of making the fortune of her family, of 
being acknowledged the smart” one of 
the family, had vanished in the smoke of 
Miss Eoxally ’s barn! 

To earn and save a thousand dollars 
seemed impossible, but if one must! In 

S — Mary Augusta's Price. 67 


Mary Augusta's Price 


time, even if it were not nntil one’s hair 
was gray, it conld be done. 

She shrank from the thought of the 
fruit-canning and preserving that had 
seemed so delightful; but that was the 
only possible way to pay the debt. The 
sweet pickles she would never make; 
that recipe gave her a Judas-like feeling; 
it seemed peculiarly her price. While 
the embers of the barn still smoldered 
she tore the paper into minute bits and 
scattered them to the four winds. Why 
had she read that hateful recipe so many 
times I It seemed indelibly stamped 
upon her memory. Perhaps that was a 
part of her punishment ! 

When the firemen and the kindly 
neighbors, who had made Miss Eoxally’s 
trouble their own, had left the ruins, and 
Miss Eoxally had retired, to repair by a 

68 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


little rest the ravages of her sleepless 
night, Mary Augusta walked about the 
smoldering heap that had been the barn, 
seeking some indication of the origin of 
the fire. The wild waving of a bine 
gingham apron at the edge of the field 
attracted her attention. It was Mrs. 
Tackaberry, and Mary Augusta reluct- 
antly obeyed the summons. 

Mrs. Tackaberry looked old and worn 
in the morning light, and her genial 
double chin hung flabby and dejected. 
‘‘You donT expect that I set the barn 
afire, do youT^ she said in a whisper. 

“Yes’m, I think you did set the barn 
on fire, ’ ’ answered Mary Augusta, sadly, 
but with uncompromising candor. 

“I remember setting my lantern down 
there on the loft, ^mongst the hay, ’ ’ said 
Mrs. Tackaberry, reflectively. “But la I 

69 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


where else could I have set itr^ she 
added, with the air of ridding herself of 
all responsibility in the matter. 

Mary Augusta’s heart sank. It was 
evident, she thought, that Mrs. Tacka- 
berry would never feel it incumbent upon 
her to pay any part of the thousand dol- 
lars. She had not expected that she 
would, and yet the burden seemed to fall 
afresh and to be heavier than ever. 

‘‘I’m real upset,” pursued Mrs. 
Tackaberry, plaintively. ‘ ‘ ’Twas seeing 
that rug that did it, in the first place; 
’twas full handsomer than what I thought 
it would be. It’s a real uncommon pat- 
tern, and having such a sight of hand- 
some pieces gives her the start of every- 
body else. 

‘ ‘ They do say she’s got a piece of every 
silk dress that was made in Joppa for 

70 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


twenty-five years and a good many that 
was made in Freeport. 

^‘IVe made np my mind that I sha’n’t 
try to send a rng to the fair/’ she went 
on. ‘ ‘ I couldn ’t stand it to get beaten by 
that mean, grudging Eoxally Tapley. I 
may get up spunk enough to make a 
crazy-quilt, and I may not. I guess 
maybe father and I will go down to Nor- 
way to my sister’s for a little vacation; 
he’s kind of miserable, poor father is. It 
isn’t any use for those that have had 
children and trouble to stand up against 
Eoxally Tapley, that never had any own 
folks and has never in this living world 
thought of anybody but Eoxally Tap- 
ley.” 

A faint remonstrance arose to Mary 
Augusta’s lips; faint, for she was sore 
with Miss Eoxally ’s little stabs, but 

71 


Mary Augusta's Price 


nevertheless, she thought she had seen 
signs of a leaven of kindness in Miss 
Koxally’s heart. 

About that— that sweet pickle.’’ 

Mrs. Tackaberry turned a searching 
gaze upon Mary Augusta’s face, which 
had a pallor that made all its yellow 
freckles more distinct. Mrs. Tackaberry 
thought to herself, most wish I hadn’t 
done it; she’s so terrible homely and 
kind of dull. ’ ’ 

^^I’ll write to Carter & Mudgett and 
recommend you before I go,” she re- 
sumed, aloud. ^^And about that sweet 
pickle—” 

don’t think I shall ever make any 
of that,” said Mary Augusta. 

‘‘Well, perhaps you might not have 
real good luck with it, ’ ’ said Mrs. Tacka- 
berry, with an accent of relief. “I don’t 

72 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


know as anybody could, outside of our 
family. And seeing I sba’n’t make any 
rug, and your just leaving the door open 
for me wasn’t any use, why, I guess we’re 
square. 

About the barn’s being burnt,” she 
looked with a half -puzzled lack of com- 
prehension at Mary Augusta’s wan face, 
over which an indescribable, pitiful 
change seemed to have come, ^‘why, the 
barn’s being burnt was only an acci- 
dent,” she said, comfortably. 


73 







MARY AUGUSTA IN THE 
PIECE-ROOM 





CHAPTER VI 


MARY AUGUSTA IN THE PIECE-ROOM 

M ISS ROXALLY had from her win- 
dow espied Mary Augusta when 
she obeyed the beckoning of the 
blue gingham apron, and as soon as the 
girl entered the house she called to her, 
in a tone of asperity, that she should like 
to know what Lucinda Tackaberry 
wanted. 

Mary Augusta explained, with a pain- 
ful sense of guilt at the necessary reser- 
vations, that Mrs. Tackaberry had said 
she and father were going to her sister’s 
at Norway for a little visit and that 
she had decided not to make a rug for the 
fair. 


77 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Miss Eoxally had come out of her 
room to meet Mary Augusta as she came 
upstairs, and she dropped down, sud- 
denly, upon the topmost stair and drew 
a long breath. 

“There wasnT anybody that I was 
afraid of except Lucinda Tackaberry, ’ ’ 
she said, “and it is kind of a relief. I 
expect I’m getting too old for such strug- 
gles and conflicts, and I’m one that likes 
to have friendly feelings with my neigh- 
bors, even when they ain’t just what they 
ought to be. Father Tackaberry, that’s 
kind of feeble anyway, he worked like 
a Trojan putting out that fire, and if 
she’s been brought to a better mind—” 

‘ ‘ She thinks she may have spunk 
enough for a crazy-quilt,” said Mary 
Augusta, striving to bear faithful wit- 
ness. 


78 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


‘‘Land ! I^d just as lief she would make 
one of those things, if she wants to, ’ ’ said 
Miss Eoxally, contemptuously. ‘ ‘ Come to 
think of it, I believe 111 send her over 
some silk pieces. IVe got more than I 
could ever use, if I should live to be a 
hundred. If you don’t feel too beat 
out. I’ll let you go right up to the attic 
and pick her out a lot of handsome 
ones. ’ ’ 

It was a relief to Mary Augusta to go 
up to the “piece-room” and look over 
the great heaps of what some people 
might have thought only rags, but which, 
to Mary Augusta’s and to many older 
feminine eyes, had a delightful fascina- 
tion. 

It was dark in the small, unfinished 
room, but she found with surprise that 
the two windows were open; still the 
79 


Mary Augusta's Price 


room seemed stifling from the smoke of 
the fire, and she hurriedly threw open 
the blinds. 

As she turned away from the window, 
one of the heaps of rags stirred, and 
while her heart stood still with fear a 
voice came from it. 

^^You can holler out and let them catch 
me if you want to, but you said you were 
a hoy’s sister!” it said. 

It was a long, loose- jointed, roughly- 
clad boy who slowly extricated himself 
from the brilliant heap of pieces. Under 
his shock of tangled curly hair a pair of 
brown eyes with a vaguely familiar ex- 
pression looked at Mary Augusta. She 
saw with relief that the iron was gone 
from the boy’s wrist. 

Yes, I got it otf,” he said, with a nod 
of satisfaction, as he followed her gaze 
80 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


with his eyes. ‘‘It didn^t belong there; 
you needn’t think it did.” 

“Oh, I am so glad!” said Mary 
Augusta, fervently. She did not doubt 
the boy’s word; it was the home opinion 
that it was easy to impose upon Mary 
Augusta. 

“They’re after me for breaking into 
Quimby’s store at Freeport. ’Twas an- 
other fellow; he came off the ship with 
me, and they nabbed me instead. I broke 
away, but they’re after me. And I came 
back to begin all over again ! I ran away 
to sea when I was a youngster.” The 
boy hung his head and kicked Miss 
Eoxally’s precious pieces in an embar- 
rassed way. “I wanted things livelier 
than they were at home; a fellow doesn’t 
know much when he’s young!” The 
philosopher of seventeen shook his head 
81 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


sadly. ^‘IVe been rough and wild, 
yon know, but never bad like that— 
like stealing; bnt for all that iPs 
hard to get a chance to begin over 
again ! ’ ^ 

‘ ‘ Oh, it is hard ! ’ ’ cried Mary Augusta, 
heavy with a sense of her own difficulties, 
as well as with sympathy. 

‘Mf I didn’t have to go away to sea 
again,” the boy continued, dejectedly, 
‘‘I can get away, I think, now IVe got 
that thing off my wrist.” He looked 
cautiously out of the windows. 
haven’t dared to try, the fire brought so 
many folks ’round. That woman with 
the lantern must have set the fire. Who 
was she?” 

Mary Augusta trembled from head to 
foot as he looked at her with breathless 
eagerness. 


82 



Mary Aug^usta' s Price. 

‘“YOU SAID YOU \YERE A BOY’S SISTER.’” 

83 








Mary Augusta’s Price 


‘‘Did you have a light P’ she de- 
manded, ignoring his question. 

“Not so much as a match,’’ he an- 
swered, with a convincing readiness. ‘ ‘ I 
just got the handcuff off last night ; there 
wasn’t time to get away, and by good 
luck I found that barn door open. I was 
up on the loft and I was asleep. I guess 
it was the light that waked me. I thought 
the officers were after me, being waked 
so suddenly, you see. I slipped through 
the door at the head of the stairs, right 
into a chamber over the wood-shed. I 
groped my way through in the dark and 
found a chance to hide up here. Who 
was the woman with a lantern? Her hair 
was gray.” His voice faltered, and as 
she looked at him a sudden light dawned 
upon Mary Augusta. 

“It was Mrs. Tackaberry,” she said. 


— Mary Augusta's Price. Sf5 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


and the boy’s face melted and broke like 
a frosty pool in the snn. But he turned 
it toward the window, away from Mary 
Augusta. 

‘M’ll never go home to my mother and 
father until IVe begun all over again,” 
he said. 

Mary Augusta reflected for a moment. 

‘‘Miss Tapley’s brother at Argyle 
wants a boy on his farm and in his 
store,” she said. “He wrote to her about 
one. You wait and I ’ll see about it. ’ ’ 

The boy caught her by the arm as she 
opened the door. 

“I’m not afraid to trust you/* he said; 
“but you— you’ll be careful not to let 
them know anything about it.” He 
pointed toward the Tackaberry house, 
and Mary Augusta nodded sagely in re- 
sponse, her eyes full of tears. 


86 


Mary Augusta's Price 


She went down without the pieces, and 
tried to break the news gently to Miss 
Eoxally that there was a boy in the 
‘‘piece-room/’ But finesse was far from 
being Mary Augusta’s forte, and she had 
difficulty in persuading Miss Eoxally not 
to lock the door and put her head out of 
the window and scream for the sheriff. 

“I think it’s Lucius Tackaberry, who 
ran away to sea when he was eleven,” 
said Mary Augusta, and then Miss Eox- 
ally said ‘^Sh! Sh!” as if it were Mary 
Augusta who had wanted to make an out- 
cry, and sat down and drew a long 
breath. 

‘^It isn’t as if I didn’t know Lucinda 
Tackaberry and that the leopard don’t 
change his spots, ’ ’ she said, meditatively ; 
‘^but she and Father Tackaberry were 
bound up in that boy, and I don’t know 
87 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


but it would kill them to have him come 
home so. Besides, I don’t expect he did 
steal; that wouldn’t be apt to run in the 
Tackaberry blood. If I like the looks of 
him, maybe I ’ll send him down to Argyle 
to Isaiah. Isaiah is the kind that likes to 
help a boy to a new start. ’ ’ 

It was only after she had interviewed 
the boy at great length, and believing his 
story, had sent him off to Isaiah at 
Argyle, with the promptness and energy 
which were her characteristics, that Miss 
Eoxally turned to Mary Augusta and 
said abruptly : 

^‘I don’t see how that wood-shed cham- 
ber door came to be unfastened. It doesn’t 
seem as if I could have done that. ’ ’ 

But she did not ask Mary Augusta 
whether she had unfastened the door, and 
to Mary Augusta’s surprise, she did not 
88 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


suggest a probability that the boy had set 
fire to the barn. 

Miss Eoxally said she thought she 
shouldn’t rebuild her barn at once; she 
had other losses and she felt too poor; 
she thought too much of the heifer she 
was bringing up to sell it, but she would 
get Ephraim Hapgood to raise it for her. 


89 






THE ACCUMULATION OF 
WEALTH 


“f ^ 





CHAPTER VII 


THE ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH 

M ary august a carried the pieces 
over to Mrs. Tackaberry that 
same afternoon, after the hoy had 
gone safely oft to Argyle. Mrs. Tacka- 
berry, on seeing the pieces, said, ^^Well, 
I never did!^’ 

She and Mary Augusta sat on the hair- 
cloth sofa in the sitting-room and looked 
over the rags together. They knew the 
pieces of wedding dresses, and of the 
dress that Maria Scott wore when she ap- 
peared as a public reader, and of the one 
that the new minister’s wife ^^came out 
bride” in— the little yellow-haired wom- 
an who didn’t live a year. 

Then Mrs. Tackaberry discovered a 
93 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


piece of the blue silk that she had when 
Lucius was a baby ; she knew it by the lit- 
tle frosted star upon it ; and of the plum 
color that she had when she went to Nor- 
way to her sister’s wedding, when Lucius 
was just five years old, and she cried over 
both of them ; and she said that anybody 
ought to forgive Eoxally Tapley, that 
never knew the comfort of children, if 
she wasn’t just what she ought to be, and 
it was foolish to let sofa pillows and rugs 
come between old neighbors, and that 
Mary Augusta might tell her that she was 
really obliged to her. 

But she said nothing about the barn 
until as Mary Augusta reached the gate, 
she called after her, tremulously : 

‘^Anybody might set a barn afire in the 
night— a tramp with a pipe or anybody, 
couldn ’t they ? ’ ’ she said. 

94 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


But Mary Augusta walked on, uncom- 
promisingly silent. 

She worked tirelessly at the rug and at 
Miss Eoxally’s housekeeping. Miss Eox- 
ally said she never had such help as Mary 
Augusta, but she wasn’t as good company 
as she expected she would be. 

Mary Augusta went home with a crisp 
ten-dollar bill when the rug was finished. 
Her family advised her how to spend 
it. Eldora thought she should buy a 
handsome hat; she said with sisterly 
frankness that when one wasn’t either 
pretty or stylish a hat went a great 
way. 

Miranda thought she ought to help pay 
for a new piano cover and a handsome 
lamp-shade for the parlor; while their 
mother said that if they were not going 
to sell the wood on the ‘^heater-piece,” 
95 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Mary Augusta would have to buy her 
winter cloak with that money. 

Elnathan gave his advice privately ; ho 
was developing business ideas, and it was 
his opinion that there was money in 
Pekin ducks. Bob Pringle had some to 
sell, and considering that there were a 
brook and a pool in their meadow— 

But Mary Augusta walked to Freeport 
and deposited her ten dollars in the sav- 
ings bank. It was on the same day that 
she went to the Freeport canning factory 
to see about getting work. Alberta Tree 
worked there and got ten dollars a week. 
The letter which Mary Augusta had re- 
ceived from Carter & Mudgett had not 
been very satisfactory ; she thought they 
seemed to doubt the ability of a sixteen- 
year-old girl. They said they had a fine 
class of custom and their goods must be 
96 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


of the very highest grade, and they had 
already engaged most of their fall stock, 
but if she cared to send them some sam- 
ples, and these proved satisfactory, they 
might be able to give her a small order. 

She was offered a situation in the fac- 
tory at eight dollars a week. They took 
no account of her modestly claimed skill 
at canning and preserving; they had 
older and more experienced people for 
that. 

Her mother wept when Mary Augusta 
asked for her consent ; it was so different 
from writing poetry, like Eunice Phil- 
lips ! Eldora said she had always known 
that Mary Augusta would never be any- 
thing but ^ ^ a scrub, ’ ’ but it did seem too 
bad for one of them. Even Elnathan 
shook his head and didn’t know what to 
make of Mary Augusta. For she could 
97 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


not take even Elnathan into her confi- 
dence. 

She worked evenings and filled the 
small order that Carter & Mudgett gave 
her. Elnathan picked the berries and 
fruit and was very kind and helpful, but 
he felt that this gave him an especial right 
to advise about the investment of her 
money, and that was embarrassing. 

She wore her old cloak and was very 
shabby, and it gradually came to be un- 
derstood that she should keep out of the 
way when there was company. Elnathan 
tried to he sympathetic, and brought 
home from the library a large volume on 
‘‘The Accumulation of Wealth,’’ which 
he proposed that they should read to- 
gether. But the neighbors shook their 
heads and thought it lamentable that a 
young girl should become so miserly, 
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Mary Augusta’s Price 


and Eldora and Miranda were deeply 
mortified. 

Miss Eoxally’s rug took the prize at 
the fair. Everyone said it was the hand- 
somest rng that had ever been seen there. 
Miss Eoxally sent Mary Augusta a ticket 
to the fair, but she did not go, because 
if she did she would lose her day’s wages. 
The firm had discovered, by this time, 
that her skill at preserving was of value 
and they had raised her wages to ten dol- 
lars a week. 

L.ofC. 


99 









MARY AUGUSTA IN 
BUSINESS 


7— Mary Augusta's Price. 




CHAPTER VIII 


MARY AUGUSTA IN BUSINESS 

I N in the spring Mrs. Wing sold the 
wood on the ‘^heater-piece/’ and 
Mary Augusta’s share of the money 
was seventy-five dollars. It was just at 
that time that a letter came from Carter 
& Mudgett, saying that her goods had 
given such satisfaction that they would 
like to order their entire stock of her this 
year. 

Elnathan wagged his head sagely and 
said that was business. Some capital was 
needed; an addition would have to be 
built to the back kitchen and they ought 
to have a horse and wagon. Of course 
his seventy-five dollars wouldn’t go far, 
103 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


and he had meant to nse it toward his col- 
lege expenses, bnt he was willing to pnt 
it with hers, to help ont. 

It wonld be safe to invest money in the 
business. Mary Augusta sat on the back 
kitchen table with Elnathan and proved 
it by figures. Elnathan never had to help 
her now ; she had studied in the long win- 
ter evenings as energetically as she 
worked. Elnathan said it was wonderful 
to see how her wits had sharpened. 

When the figures had shown her what 
might be, she gave way and burst into 
tears. To Elnathan ’s bewilderment 
and distress she would only say she 
couldn’t! she couldn’t! the money wasn’t 
hers. 

She had two hundred and seventy-five 
dollars— a small fortune, it seemed to El- 
nathan ; she had earned the two hundred 
104 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


by hard work and painful self-denial, 
and it wasn’t hers ! 

She took a half -holiday and went over 
to the Corner, the next day. She had two 
errands. A hoy who worked at the fac- 
tory knew who had broken into Quimby’s 
store ; he could prove that Lucius Tacka- 
berry was innocent. Mary Augusta 
wished to tell Miss Roxally of that, and if 
she could gain Mrs. Tackaberry’s con- 
sent, she wished to confess everything to 
Miss Eoxally, and give her the two hun- 
dred and seventy-five dollars as the first 
instalment of what she owed. 

There was such a temptation to keep 
the money, now! Not only were there 
such business prospects, but there had 
never been so much need that she should 
be ‘‘smart,” for there had been some 
wire-pulling among the committee, and 
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Mary Augusta’s Price 


Eldora had lost her school, and Signor 
Scherzolari had come np from Freeport 
and taken away almost all of Miranda’s 
mnsic pnpils. 

Miss Eoxally wept enough to tarnish 
all her pins when Mary Augusta told her 
about the boy who could prove Lucius 
Tackaberry’s innocence. She said he 
had been such a good hoy that Isaiah had 
thanked her many times for sending him 
to him, and in the months which she had 
spent in Argyle she had grown really 
fond of him, and let Lucinda Tackaherry 
he what she would, she was glad for her, 
and Mary Augusta ought to go right over 
and tell her. 

It was a thing to warm one ’s heart, it 
was a thing to make one realize the bless- 
edness of life, to tell Mrs. Tackaherry and 
Father Tackaherry about their hoy wlio 
106 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


had been lost and was found. Mrs. 
Tackaberry followed Mary Augusta to 
the gate, detained her by a fat clasp 
upon her arm — which thrilled Mary 
Augusta with a painful memory— and 
burst into a fresh flood of tears. 

‘ ^ Seeing what Eoxally Tapley has done 
for my boy, I can’t help thinking about 
burning her barn, ’ ’ she said. 

Mary Augusta felt the stirring of hope ; 
she had tried to ask her if she might tell 
Miss Eoxally about it, but the theme 
seemed to jar too painfully upon the gen- 
eral joy. 

‘‘Father knows all about the company 
that she was insured in, ’ ’ continued Mrs. 
Tackaberry, “and he says if she had 
stuck to it she could have made them pay 
her. There was some reason why she 
was entitled to a day of grace.” 

107 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


‘‘I am going to pay it, anyway; I 
opened the door,^’ said Mary Angnsta. 
^ M Ve been saving np and I have two hun- 
dred and seventy-five dollars of the thou- 
sand. ’ ^ 

‘‘Why! why! I heard about your sav- 
ing! Is that what youVe been doing it 
for? And I— I never thought anything 
about it until I knew she helped my boy. 
Why, you poor little creature ! Tell Miss 
Koxally? WTiy— why, I don’t know as I 
care for anything, now, I’m so happy! 
And ’twasn’t anything— just to see her 
rug; she ought to be fiattered. And it 
might have been a tramp that burned 
the barn, if I did set the lantern down. ’ ’ 

But Mary Augusta had gone with the 
coveted permission to tell. Mrs. Tacka- 
berry’s easy view of things confused and 
pained her. 


108 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


Miss Eoxally listened to her story with 
amazement, changing slowly to a glow of 
admiration in her face. 

‘‘It was splendid of yon!’’ she cried. 
“I wouldn’t have believed you would let 
Lucinda Tackaberry in to see my rug, 
you seemed so straightforward,” she 
added. “But there! I don’t care a mite 
about that now, not a mite. How we do 
get worked up over little things. But to 
think you’ve toiled and struggled like 
that to pay for the barn when I set it on 
fire myself!” 

“You— you ! ’ ’ cried Mary Augusta. 

“Yes, me. I knew it right away, and 
that was the reason I didn ’t make the fuss 
I might have made about the insurance. 
I didn’t tell, because I’ve always been 
real sensitive about walking in my sleep. 
I dreamed that night that Buttercup, the 
109 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


heifer, was choking with a turnip. A\'hen 
I woke up I was in her stall in the barn. 

‘‘I hurried right away, for I was bare- 
footed and shivering, and I was afraid I 
should have a numb spell. When I got 
back to my room I thought about fire, for 
I^d picked the kerosene lamp up from 
right amongst the hay, where I’d set it in 
my sleep. But ’twas most morning and 
I thought I’d risk it without going back. 
When the alarm of fire woke me I thought 
I ’d done it ; when they said the fire must 
have started right by that stall, then I 
knew. ’ ’ 

Mary Augusta’s face, with its high, 
lumpy forehead and its long, peaked chin, 
was radiant with joy. She opened her 
heart and told Miss Eoxally something 
about the beautiful business prospects, 
and that she didn’t think she should ever 
110 


Mary Augusta's Price 


have to be taken care of, although she 
wasn’t ‘‘smart” like the others. 

And Miss Eoxally’s sympathy was so 
deep that not one pin-prick was mingled 
with its expression. 

“If ever you want any help, getting 
started or getting along, you’ll know 
where to come for it !” she said heartily. 

When Mary Augusta left Miss Eox- 
ally’s house there was Mrs. Tackaberry’s 
blue gingham apron waving again on the 
edge of the field. 

Mary Augusta obeyed the summons 
more reluctantly than the first time. 
Mrs. Tackaberry would always jar upon 
her. 

It was not about the barn that Mrs. 
Tackaberry wished to speak; she had 
apparently forgotten all about that. But 
she held out a folded paper and she hid 
111 


Mary Augusta’s Price 


her face in her blue gingham apron, tear- 
fully. 

declare I’m ashamed to tell you,” 
she said; ‘‘but I— didn’t give you the 
right recipe for sweet pickles! It had 
been in our family so long and Grandma 
Forristall prophesied that it was worth a 
fortune, and I couldn’t bring myself to 
give it away. ’ ’ 

Mary Augusta shrank from it a little, 
even now ; she could not help remember- 
ing that it was the thing for which she 
had sold herself. 

“But it’s just right now—” Mrs. 
Tackaberry saw the shrinking and looked 
at Mary Augusta in bewilderment. “If 
you’ll take it—” 

“Yes’m, I’ll take it,” said Mary 
Augusta, firmly. “It will be very use- 
ful in my business. ’ ’ 


112 














UBRARY OF CONGRESS 


ODcesbaibst. 


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V 



